South-east England

PROPERTY auctioneers Clive Emson have launched a fine arts division following the closure of auctioneers Hobbs Parker in Ashford, Kent.

Dukes have negotiated the sale to the nation of two major Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Music by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti were found in the Oxfordshire home of the late Jean Preston that also yielded two panels from the San Marco altarpiece by Fra Angelico sold by the Dorchester auctioneers last year for £1.7m.

Summers Place Auctions have revealed plans for a three-tier selling strategy when they hold their inaugural sale of garden statuary and fossil decoration ‘in association with Sotheby’s’ in May.

In 1963, the daring actions of a 15-strong band of small-time London criminals captivated the world’s media. In 2007, it seems the Great Train Robbery still has the capacity to seize headlines.

Mallams have announced the location of their new saleroom in Oxfordshire.

A Kent dealer has fallen victim to a thief whose practised deception suggests he will strike again.

Kent auctioneers Hobbs Parker are to close in the New Year. After more than 50 years selling antiques and fine art in Ashford, the parent company have chosen to close the division in the face of rising rent and external competition.

Another imperial Chinese sleeper has awoken in West Sussex.

Mallams, who conducted their final sale in Bicester two weeks ago, have revealed they are in the final stages of negotiations to acquire a new saleroom site in Oxfordshire.

A pair of 19th century Venetian views by Italian artist Francesco Zanin proved to be the high point of a Silver Jubilee auction held by Ewbank auctioneers of Surrey on September 20 and provided their owner, a local Dorking family, with an unexpected financial bonus when they sold for multiples of their original estimates.

THERE is a temporary Tuesday date change for Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park Racecourse.

West Sussex auctioneers Worthing Auction Galleries and Scarborough Fine Art are to merge.

JS Auctions are having to cease operations at their Cotefield Farm premises in Bodicote near Banbury.

Kent’s Canterbury Auction Galleries were one of the few salerooms to hold a good quality art and antiques sale in August.

High drama at the Chichester auction rooms of Henry Adams on July 19 when this pair of Chinese famille rose moon flasks shot to £760,000. The price, a house record, is also the fourth highest ever achieved in a UK auction room outside of London.

FREQUENTLY, the most interesting object in someone’s garage is not the car.

JAMES Podger is to close his Great Grooms antiques centre at Dorking and concentrate all his efforts and resources on consolidating his Great Grooms centre at Hungerford, Berkshire.

IT’S not often that eight sheets of paper bring out eight telephone bidders, but that was the case at Mallams’ sale in Oxford on June 8. Yet these were no ordinary scraps. They were, in fact, important pieces of architectural history.

PRESTIGE Ceramic Fairs have a new and attractive venue; in Kent at the 16th century Sutton Valence School which is set in 100 acres of grounds in the Weald of Kent, near Maidstone.

After a year-long fund-raising effort, The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has just secured the future of its most impressive Chelsea porcelain exhibit.